Incomplete
by SMKLegacy
Summary: Josh alone on the campaign trail with pen and paper.
1. Lost

**Incomplete**

TEASER: Josh alone on the campaign trail with pen and paper.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

RATING: R for sexual content and language

SPOILERS: Anything through "King Corn" is fair game for spoilers. This is future fic/flashback and may or may not reflect the direction the show actually takes.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This came to me as I was driving to one of my youth group member's basketball games. I've been channeling Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle for CSI for so long that Josh and Donna needed attention, I guess. I'm posting it now as a preemptive strike against the return of that Amy person. Reviews appreciated but nothing held hostage for them.

-

Rivulets of icy rainwater streamed down the window, creating crazy patterns along the glass before merging into a tidal pool along the cross bar of the pane, only to overflow onto the next pane and repeat the process. Beyond the window, the rain pelted hard-packed snow left from the blizzard two days before, leaving pits in the surface that would be hazardous by later in the day when the temperature dropped below freezing.

The lithe blonde woman at the window already felt the cold. Or maybe the more truthful statement was that she had been feeling the cold for two days already, but not the cold of the frigid winter snows.

"Mom?" Her son Seth called from the doorway in a voice so reminiscent of his father that she choked back a sob as she turned, startled, and wiped at her eyes.

He stepped in to gather her in his arms. "Everyone is here. The rabbi wants to know if . . . if you're ready."

After a moment of selfish comfort, Donna Moss Lyman straightened her spine, mustering all the strength she could summon. "I will never be ready for this, honey."

Seth Lyman nodded and nuzzled her hair like he used to as a small child. "I know."

"I, um, need a few more minutes. Is everyone here?" She fiddled with his tie, just like she used to fix Josh's tie whether it needed it or not.

"Everyone we knew was coming." He stepped back, letting his arms fall to his sides. "Uncle Charlie said to tell you that he's ready to do whatever you want him to do, and Uncle Sam is still very willing to come in and walk you in."

She smiled as best she could. "And I bet your Aunt Ainsley has Jed's tie fixed and his hair smoothed far better than I could convince him to do this morning."

Seth chuckled. "Aw, Mom, cut him a break. He's so young to be losing . . . It's hard enough on me and Noah to think he won't be there when we get married and when Noah graduates from med school. I can't imagine Dad not being there when I graduated from high school or college."

"You're right. When did you get so smart?"

His tight smile also reminded her of Josh and her heart cramped at the sight. "When I got Dad for my father and you for my mother. I'll send Noah back for you in five minutes, okay?"

"Okay." It wasn't, really, but then none of this was okay. Neither of them was ever supposed to be incomplete again.

-

The first letter appeared under her hotel room door a couple of days after Bob Russell had made his obligatory speech in support of ethanol at the Iowa Corn Grower's Expo. Donna Moss wasn't even sure what state she was in, having flown through five airports and driven over 400 miles since the Expo – but she _was_ sure whose handwriting identified the standard business-sized envelope as hers without even picking it up.

"Josh." It would be funny under other circumstances, them being in the same hotel for the third night in a week. Fate, even, if she believed in it.

Did she want to deal with the time bomb ticking at her feet tonight, or wait until tomorrow – she looked at her watch and corrected herself – later today to open it? She snorted to herself that the question wasn't whether or not she would open it, just when.

With a sigh, she picked up the envelope and made her way to the vanity, where she let the missive stare at her as she got ready for bed. She finished her ablutions, made her request for a blessedly late 6:45 wake-up call, and slid into the hotel bed. The light was out for a total of three minutes by the bedside clock before her curiosity got the better of her.

She sat up and turned on the light, blinking against its brightness as she reached for the envelope. She opened it without tearing it, knowing that despite everything that had happened between her and Josh, she would keep this just like she had kept all the other personal notes he had ever written to her. It wasn't a big collection, but it was special to her just because everything came from him.

Inside, she found a single sheet of paper , one side covered in his clipped, concise scratch. At least his was legible to most people, unlike her "distinctive" penmanship. The letter was dated the day before, with a time noted at the beginning of just an hour before she found it upon her return from a late meeting with potential donors.

_My dear, dear Donna,_

_When did I lose you? When did I get so focused on the results that I forgot to look for my partner along the way?_

She laughed. "How many beers had you had when you wrote this, Joshua?"

_I know what you're thinking. The answer is "None." I haven't had more than one beer in a night since . . . since the night I realized that I had lost you. And that night, I was smart enough to stay home because the last thing I could have faced just then was you. I shudder to think what we might have said, me in my drunken stupor and you loosed from the bonds of boss-employee convention._

_Why, you're probably asking, have I limited myself to one beer in a night since you left to be the Media Coordinator for Russell in the Northeast and the Northwest? (See, I do pay attention.)_

Donna was, in fact, wondering that very thing, and she chuckled to see that even under current circumstances, she and Josh were so in sync.

_Well, Donnatella, if you must know, it's because I don't have anyone else to entrust with the "delicate system" you insist that I have. Sam is in California, and even when we get there, he may not be willing to put up with me the way he was back in the day. And you, well . . . you're moving up in the world, and now even when we happen to be in the same city or even the same hotel, I can't bring myself to impose upon you because . . ._

_. . . Because I'm afraid you don't want me anymore, if you ever really did._

"Oh, Josh," she mumbled, shaking her head. "If you had let me talk to you . . . or told me what you were up to . . ."

Then she realized what he actually meant. "Oh, God. Josh . . ."

There was nothing more to the note, just his name signed with the flourish she knew so well.

She slept with the letter under pillow that night and for the next two weeks, although not once in that time did she cross paths with Josh himself.


	2. Some Old Guy

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

Seth closed the door behind him with a gentle snick of metal on metal.

For a minute, Donna resumed her study of the snow and ice covered courtyard below, trying to forget about the spattered, seamed, and scrunched piece of paper stuffed into the pocket of her blazer along with half the contents of a box of tissues she had taken from her bedside table.

That single piece of paper meant more to her than any other physical possession she had ever had. To take it out now, to do what she had promised herself she would do if the time ever came that Josh went on without her, would be the final acknowledgement that he was gone from her world. She just couldn't do it, not yet.

"I'll do it in a minute," she promised the window. And in her heart, she promised him.

-

Donna received a note next on the day of the New Hampshire Primary. She and Will had gone out stumping around Manchester and Nashua with the Vice President for the morning; when she returned to the office to check her messages after lunch, one of the volunteers approached her with a plain white envelope.

"Um, Miss Moss?" The volunteer didn't look old enough to vote and had a squeak in his voice that suggested he might not be able to vote in the next New Hampshire Primary, either.

She made sure to look at his nametag before she spoke. "Yes, Zach?"

The boy smiled and blushed. Donna chuckled, recognizing the beginnings of a crush, and motioned for him to hand her the envelope. "I don't bite." She looked at the package long enough to verify the handwriting, then tucked it into her purse.

"Um, yes, ma'am. Some old guy dropped this off for you about, um, an hour ago."

That earned Zach an outright laugh. "Some old guy? Can you describe him?"

Zach stared at her, eyes open wide in fear for a moment before he blinked and sighed. "I guess. He was about the same height as you and his hair was all messy, like he runs his hands through it all the time. I know because my brother does it and my mom yells at him to stop."

_Josh,_ she thought. "Did anyone get a name?"

Zach shrugged. "After the old guy left, I heard someone say they thought that was some guy from the Santos campaign staff, and someone else said they were pretty sure he used to work at the White House and maybe that's how he knows you."

"Okay, thanks. You did well, Zach."

"Thanks!" He colored again, not as much, and turned to go back to the bank of phones where he had been working, presumably since the campaign started calling likely voters at 7 a.m. Donna jumped when he whirled around to face her again. "Do you know when the next shift is coming? I haven't voted yet and it's an hour from here to my house."

_My God, 18 gets younger every year,_ she mourned, giving him a shrug. "You'd have to ask Elsbeth when she gets back from lunch."

Donna wanted to open the letter as badly as she had ever wanted to throttle its author and almost as badly as she had ever wanted to seduce him. But it wasn't until well after midnight, until Will and Vice President Russell had analyzed their stunning margin of loss to former Vice President Hoynes and the frighteningly close third place finish of Matt Santos, that she could escape to the privacy of her hotel room to read it.

Even so, she made herself pack, wash, get into bed, and place a request for a 5:45 wake-up call before she tore into the envelope.

_Donnatella, my darling,_

Her stomach flipped at the intimacy. He caressed her with his words and startled her into paying attention with every nerve in her body.

_I have watched you these past two weeks from afar, meeting people you have impressed the socks off of and having to work that much harder to get them to pay attention to Santos. The student has far surpassed the master, my dear. I am so incredibly proud of you, even if I sometimes hate that you're so good at what you do._

Tears welled in her eyes as she heard him speak those words in her head, words that had been begrudgingly spoken so infrequently in the eight years they worked together. It was tempting to think that they would still be working together if he had been less stingy with his praise over that time, but deep in her heart, she knew that she had needed to break away from him, to prove to herself, to him, and to the world that she was capable of great things on her own. And so she had, if the teacher was acknowledging that he had been surpassed.

_I don't know if you realize how much I blamed myself for Gaza, Donna. The entire time your life hung in the balance, all I could think of was that I sent you, that if I had let you move onward and upward sooner or had held on to you just a little longer, you wouldn't have been fighting for your life. When I had to leave you in Germany to come home, the First Lady cornered me one night and made me talk to her. You know how she can be. But she said the most astonishing thing to me, something that made me both incredibly happy and incredibly sad._

_She said that you blamed yourself for me getting shot at Rosslyn because you had begged for the night off, and that maybe if you had been there, I wouldn't have been in the way of the bullet. That maybe you would have taken the hit and saved me from the trauma and pain._

_God, Donna, if I had known . . . Was that why you hovered over me, because you felt guilty? I am only putting this together now, looking back with the clarity of hindsight. I always thought . . . I hoped . . . I wanted to think you took care of me because you loved me._

"I did! I do!" Her fierce whisper echoed in the empty room. "You ass . . ."

_Your confused, wandering, but hopeful Joshua._


	3. Need to Know

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

The minute passed, and then one more before Donna reached into her blazer pocket. She pulled out a fragile piece of paper, held together in its upper corner by several worn layers of cellophane tape and so leathery from repeated handling over the years that the writing had faded to spidery gray fragments. With great care, she unfolded it to reveal a ragged heart torn out of a sheet of photocopy paper.

"Josh . . ." Her sigh emptied her as she began to peel away the tape with one short, unpolished fingernail. After several dry sobs punctuated by the scraping of her finger against the page, the sheet separated, leaving her with two unequal pieces of the heart. She tucked the smaller piece from one lobe back into her pocket and clutched the remainder to her chest, letting out one more wracking sob of utter anguish before she shuffled to the table to finish her task.

-

The next two notes came two days apart, one in Dover, Delaware, and the other in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They contained personal anecdotes of Josh's childhood and gave her much insight into the experiences that made him Josh Lyman, political mastermind. He addressed each of those to his "Darling Donnatella" and signed each with "Great affection from your biggest fan."

A week after Santos scared everyone by placing a very strong third in New Hampshire, John Hoynes won South Carolina. Bob Russell won Delaware. Matt Santos won the Arizona and Oklahoma primaries and the New Mexico caucus to the surprise of almost everyone involved, including Santos himself. Except Josh, of course, whose note to Donna the night before came from the room at the end of the hall in their hotel in Phoenix.

_My beautiful, intelligent, wonderful Donnatella,_

_I have my own Bartlett, just like Leo told me to find. Matt is going to win here, in New Mexico, and in Oklahoma, too, Donna, mark my words. Which means that we will slog on, you and I, tilting at our separate campaign windmills in hopes of having a chance to work on the Presidential campaign of the man for whom we've given up so much. Including US._

_You're a lucky woman, Donna. You'll have a place on the national campaign no matter who wins the nomination – because even if it's Hoynes at the top, it's one of our men in the number 2 slot. And if Santos is on the ticket at all, I refuse to be a damned fool by not to bringing you onto our staff with a promotion – and you'll only move up in Russell's campaign if he takes the prize. I, on the other hand, will be out of a job unless Santos is on the slate, and if he's on it with John, the price may very well be my head. Your man may also make that a prerequisite, but I sense that Will is more levelheaded and Bob less vindictive than John._

_If Santos wins, his wife wants to active in policy and as a good will ambassador. How would you like to be the Chief of Staff for the First Lady – I mean a real part of the West Wing team with total access all the time, or at least as much as National Security will allow? Random thought, I know, but I've already talked to Matt and Helen and they're both sold on the idea._

Donna never in a million years would have believed that anyone would consider her even remotely qualified to be on the First Lady's staff, never mind her Chief of Staff with an unprecedented relationship to the President's staff! Mrs. Russell certainly wasn't interested in moving her into a role like that, but then, neither would Mrs. Russell as First Lady be interested in much beyond ribbon cuttings and award ceremonies.

_I need to know the truth. Did you ever want me? Was guilt what motivated you to take care of me the way you always did, even before and after Rosslyn?_

_Yours forever._

_Joshua_

The last paragraph made her cry to think that he didn't know why she served at his beck and call for so many years. The thought of Josh wanting to be with her forever overwhelmed her with a feeling of unworthiness.

Not for the first time, she tried to compose a response to him, but she couldn't say what she needed to say without seeing him, touching him, hearing him. As personal as his letters were, she felt hers would be equally impersonal. So she did this time as she always did: called the desk and left a message that she had his letter under her pillow. It was all she could think of to tell him how much his words meant to her.


	4. Incomplete

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

Her careful, strong writing, much different now than in her days as the "Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff", looked stark on the aged white heart, but it said what she needed it to say. Donna folded the fractured page along the ancient crease lines and tucked it back into her pocket just as Noah, Seth's younger identical twin, knocked on the door.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything snappy to say, Mom. It's time." Noah's green eyes showed the strain of the past two weeks, the twelve days of Josh's steady decline after his stroke and the two days since his death.

"Just you being here is enough, sweetheart. Do I look okay?"

Noah stepped in and, like his brother, enveloped her in his arms. "For a woman who just lost her heart, I'd say you look pretty damned good."

Donna gave a little laugh as his words brought back a memory. "You heard your father say that to me when Jed was born."

He nodded against her cheek. "Yes, I did. And I'll bet he said it when Leah was born and again when Seth and I were born, too."

"He did, actually. Those were happier times . . ."

Again mimicking his brother, Noah kissed her hair. "Yeah, Mom, they were. But remember what Dad said the other day. He's waiting for you on the other side and he promised to wait patiently."

"You remember how hard we all laughed at that." Despite herself, Donna could feel some of her sorrow lifting a little.

"I remember that Dad was offended that we laughed, until he laughed so hard his nasal cannula fell into his mouth and he nearly choked." He shook his head. "It's a good thing that was documented or no one will believe me at school. Anyway, I know it's not exactly a common Jewish belief, but I personally am grateful that Dad will be there for you when we have to let you go a very long time from now."

Donna huffed a little to hide a sob.

Noah shook his head and kissed her hair again. "This is getting morbid even for a funeral. Are we ready to go?"

Donna squared her shoulders within his arms. "As ready as we can ever be under these circumstances."

"Okay. I love you, Mom." He let her go, then took her hand as they exited the room and began the journey to the sanctuary of the synagogue.

"I love you, too, Noah."

-

During the five weeks between "mini Tuesday" and Super Tuesday, she and Josh were in the same cities at the same time nineteen times. Fifteen of those times, they had hotel rooms on the same hallway and two others just a floor apart. Even when their hotels were across the city from each other, she got a letter, once again a series of anecdotes and insights into his personality.

And once again, on the eve of the voting, he turned to his most deeply held secrets in his missive, delivered to her room in the Hilton San Diego Resort by messenger an hour after they shared another silent, emotionally laden elevator ride.

That elevator ride set every nerve in her body humming with something she couldn't quite identify and left her unable to focus long enough to accomplish anything. She thus tore open the envelope before the door had closed behind the bellboy, not caring that the young man had gotten quite a view of her cleavage in her anxiety to know what gem of insight she might receive into the only man she had ever really loved and now loved even more than she had in the best of times.

She unfolded the paper to reveal the larger part of a ragged heart torn out of a sheet of plain white photocopy paper. Josh's handwriting filled the center of one side and she could see a couple of places where the paper had been wet enough to smear the ink. She wouldn't speculate out loud, but she wondered if Josh had been crying as he wrote.

_Beloved,_

_At the end of the day today, we will know which of our candidates will survive to challenge Hoynes down the stretch. It won't matter to me how it ends up. _

_I have my candidate, my future president even if he bows out now, but I have lost something vital in the process. _

_I don't know how else to say this._

_I'm broken, Donna. I drove my own heart away, leaving only the smallest part to beat lonely night after lonely night to sustain me._

_I am incomplete because you hold the greater part of my heart in your hands. _

_I promised myself I would wait to say this until I could look into your beautiful blue eyes to make sure you know how serious I am, but I find that I can't wait any longer._

_I love you._

_I'm tired of running my life by what others might think, and you've proved yourself to the world now. There is no White House to think of right this moment, no "how will this play in Peoria" to consider. As soon as this is over for one of us, you and I are going to talk._

_Yours forever for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, and not even death will part us but for a time._

_Joshua_

She was crying after the first word. By the time she got to the end, her tears threatened to obliterate the rest of the writing. "I love you, too," she said to the heart, and threw herself onto the bed in giddy, overwrought relief.


	5. Frantic

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

Donna couldn't believe that people filled every available seat in the sanctuary and the balcony of the synagogue. One of the First Lady's Secret Service detail told her that two hundred more sat in the function hall watching the service on C-SPAN.

Their Seth; the third President of the United States she and Josh had helped elect, Sam Seaborn; and the fourth and current President of the United States, Charles Young, sat on the platform with the rabbi, all of them looking at her with sympathy and love as she made her way on Noah's arm to the front pew.

She sat down beside Jed, who wrapped his arm around her and laid his head on her shoulder. Noah sat down at her side and stretched his arms, his lanky height giving him enough span to wrap both of them with one arm. A moment later, he welcomed his older sister Leah into his other shoulder when she slid in beside him from the pew across the aisle, where she had been sitting with the First Lady, Zoey Bartlet Young. Behind her, Donna heard CJ Craig and Toby Zeigler, now frail from a recent battle with cancer, comforting the preteen grandchildren of the late Matt Santos, who had been taught to view Josh as something of a minor deity by their parents.

The rabbi began by escorting Seth down to the rest of the family. He took a small pair of scissors out of his pocket and raised them to Donna's right shoulder. "The mark of mourning is to rend one's clothing. We do this today with a symbol, that of cutting a black ribbon, to show our understanding of the tradition and our respect for those who have come before us." He cut Donna's ribbon, then moved down to Leah and repeated the action. After that, he cut Seth's, Noah's, and finally Jed's.

Jed's choked sob reverberated around the room as the separated piece of ribbon fluttered to the floor at the rabbi's feet. The rabbi, who had presided at each of the boys' _bar mitzvah_ ceremonies, laid his hand on Jed's shoulder to steady him.

"It's okay to cry, son," he said. He turned to Seth. "You ready?"

Seth's smile broke Donna's heart all over again. "I will never be ready for this, but it's time."

The two men ascended the steps with great dignity. Sam clapped Seth's shoulder as he sat down while the rabbi moved to the podium.

He bowed his head for a moment, then spoke in a rich, soothing baritone. "Friends, we are gathered here to celebrate the 74 years of Joshua Benjamin Lyman's life. For many of you, this ceremony will be oddly familiar yet completely different from anything you've experienced before. You will hear prayers and Psalms in Hebrew as well as English today, as the family requested. Where you are invited to join in the recitation of those Psalms and prayers, you will find them in the prayer book – which reads from right to left in deference to the Hebrew language. You will also hear what in the Christian tradition is called a eulogy. Josh Lyman's eulogy will be given by three men." He moved away from the podium. "As you know, the burial is private. At the end of the service, you are invited to share your condolences with the family for a brief time in the reception room.

"I invite you to listen as our cantor opens our service with the chanting of Psalm 23, first in Hebrew and then in English."

Donna had learned enough Hebrew over the years to follow the verses as the cantor chanted, but when he began the English recitation, the realization hit her that this was all real. Her Josh had died, too young, and later today they would bury him in the Lyman family plot in a small cemetery in Connecticut after a final journey in Air Force One. Not a Jewish cemetery, interestingly; she had once asked Josh's mother why not and the answer was simply, "I always thought Josh would need something different." An astonishing comment, considering that her in-laws bought the plot and the grave marker when Joanie died 6 years before Donna was even born.

_If Dinah felt half as angry at God then as I do right now, maybe they bought the plot in a non-Jewish cemetery to defy God. _Donna crossed her arms across her body and shivered at the thought of God's disappointment at her fury.

The cantor's rich baritone voice rose almost as though he were singing. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Beside her, Jed smiled and settled further into her shoulder. "Dad's in God's house now, Mom. I find that so comforting."

Her anger at God dissipated, burned away like fog in the sunlight at her son's simple insight. "So do I, lovebug. So do I."

-

Donna had no idea how long she laid on the bed laughing and crying before she found the strength to reread Josh's incredible words. After that, she looked at the LED readout on the clock-radio, shrieking when she saw 1:24 turn to 1:25. She couldn't, wouldn't wait to talk to Josh until after the whole world knew the results of the Super Tuesday primaries; she needed for her own sanity to talk to him tonight or she wouldn't have the strength to care about Bob Russell's performance around the country.

In short, frantic hops, she crossed her room to the bathroom as she pulled on a pair of shorts. In front of the mirror, she yanked a brush through her tangled hair with one hand as she mopped smeared mascara off her alabaster skin with the other. Satisfied a moment later with both efforts, she swept her long blond hair into a ponytail, then in quick succession dropped some Visine into each eye, touched up three blemishes along her chin, swiped her champagne shadow pencil across each eyelid, and puffed blush on her cheeks. Mascara she would forego, loathe to take the time to do it right and satisfied that enough remained to counteract the lashless effect of pale hair on light skin.

The changes made the reflection in the mirror much more presentable. She smiled, thinking about Josh, and decided that a touch of her favorite lip gloss would add the perfect touch.

"He loves me!" She sounded like a schoolgirl with her first crush, but she didn't care. No schoolgirl could possibly do what she planned to do to Josh when he opened his door.


	6. Good Words

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

"Josh Lyman met the love of his life in a New Hampshire campaign office, but didn't admit it for eight full years. Let me tell you, we all went crazy on Donna's behalf," Sam Seaborn said, earning a laugh from the congregation. A few minutes later, he gave them another laugh. "When he came to me during my predecessor's second year in office, he had already written out a napkin with 'Seaborn for America', knowing it would make me think hard about his proposition. I was not, however, prepared for my then 2-year old godson Jed to start singing my campaign song, or to be able to tell me that it was time for a good, old fashioned feel-good campaign like Tippecanoe and Tyler, too. I promise you that only one of Josh Lyman's sons could possibly say the word campaign at the age of two, let alone know Presidential election slogans from the 1840 election."

When Charlie Young finished the speech his staff had vetted, he told a story off-script that not many people knew outside of the Bartlet White House staff. "I went to the Office of Personnel that day to put in an application as a messenger. For whatever reason, fate, God's will, sheer luck, whatever, Josh Lyman was there that day screening résumés for the Presidential bodyman. I'm not sure to this day why he even looked at my application, but he did, he put me at the top of the list, and then Debbie Fiderer took over to make sure that I got the job, even over politically connected people. If I had been a messenger, I wouldn't have become Jed Bartlet's favorite son-in-law. I might still have become the President someday, because Josh and I might have crossed paths at some point anyway, but I know for a fact that I wouldn't have been Jed Bartlet's favorite son-in-law. I owe Josh Lyman a debt of gratitude much too large to ever repay. He gave me Zoey, and Zoey gave me my life." He looked right at Donna with a sad smile as he finished. "So Josh, here's to you, and here's to you waiting a lot longer than 8 years for Donna this time around. We kind of need her here in your absence."

Around Donna, Leah and Jed sniffled; Noah squeezed her against him. She paid no heed to the tears coursing down her own face.

Seth approached the podium after embracing each of the two presidents, men he and his siblings called "Uncle" without a second thought. Donna thought her son looked pale and unsteady, but after a deep breath and a flash of the full-dimpled Lyman smile, he found strength and spoke with unwavering devotion.

"My dad was either the coolest geeky guy or the geekiest cool guy in the universe." Seth waited for the wave of laughter to dissolve before he went on. "Yeah, he taught Jed to sing the Seaborn campaign song before Uncle Sam ever agreed to run for President, but what he did to Noah and me was much worse because we were old enough to know we were being humiliated. When we were six, Dad was approached by a potential Democratic presidential nominee who wanted him to run his campaign. Unfortunately, not only was Dad not interested in working on any campaigns that year, he would have become a Republican activist had this particular dirty politician won the nomination. When the gentleman in question would not take 'no' for an answer, Dad got creative in the style of Grover Cleveland in 1884. Cleveland's campaign slogan was, 'Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the Continental Liar from the state of Maine.' Dad had Noah and me deliver the message in no uncertain terms: Harris, Harris, Michael Harris, the man with con's sins from Wisconsin.'"

The congregation, knowing the subsequent convictions for racketeering and solicitation of murder against Harris during that same primary season, roared with laughter for nearly two minutes before Seth got them quiet again. "Now that we are saying goodbye to Dad, I think it's only fair to mention that Mom was the one who made the Wisconsin pun. Dad just adapted it for use in the degradation of another human being." He flashed a smile as a few twitters floated through the room. "Even when my father was Chief of Staff for President Santos and for Uncle Sam, he still managed to carve out time for us every day. Part of that was most likely because Mom kept tight reign on his assistants and secretaries from the First Lady's Office in the East Wing," more laughter interrupted, "but most of his dedication came from his unwavering, unconditional love for us.

"He could always tell Noah and me apart, even when we were babies – and I have that on the authority of someone other than him, so I know it's not just Lyman Swagger. He encouraged Leah to pursue her singing career and threw the biggest party Juliard had ever seen when she graduated at the top of her class. He told me I could do whatever I wanted to do with my life and he meant it, sometimes so much that I thought for a while that he was disappointed that I'm following him into politics. WhenNoah announced his intention to go to medical school, Dad went out and bought him a full laboratory of equipment and supplies and then helped us convert a room in the basement into a biochemical lab. Jed uses it now and plans to be a research scientist, maybe even the man who finally cures Multiple Sclerosis."

Seth looked at Donna. "But as much as he loved us, he would drop everything for our mother, Donna Moss Lyman. He told me once that if ever some strange blonde woman walks into a campaign office and hires herself to answer my phone, just marry her as soon as possible after that so as to save myself 8 years of trauma and grief."

CJ and Toby shouted out together, "Not to mention everyone else around you."

Donna felt herself blush as a wave of laughter rose and receded. She didn't dare turn around for fear of breaking into uncontrollable giggles, something totally inappropriate for a woman of her stature at her own husband's funeral. She waved toward the podium in hopes that Seth would resume and take the attention away from her.

"It would be a lie to say that Mom and Dad never argued; on the contrary, they argued all the time. But it was cute, fun arguing, bantering, we called it around the house, not the strife-ridden quarrelling so many of my classmates reported. Dad lost with no grace regularly and on the rare occasions he won, he lorded it over Mom for weeks."

A chorus of "uh-huhs" and "mmmhhmm's" followed his declaration, Donna crushed Noah's arm around her more closely in another effort not to laugh too much.

"My father was undoubtedly arrogant, officious, quarrelsome, and stubborn to a fault. But he was also a man whose loyalty could not be purchased, whose ethics were never called into question during 45 years in national politics, and who is surrounded here at his death by friends who have come from at least 43 states and 30 countries to honor him not as a politician but as a man.

"Something my mother taught me about Dad during Uncle Sam's first election campaign has stayed with me ever since. 'Seth,' she said at the beginning of a major fundraiser, 'I want you to watch the way your father treats every person who walks into this room for the next hour.' I did, but I wasn't exactly sure what Mom wanted me to notice. So I asked her about it when we took a break. 'Your father treats every person as though he or she is the most important person in the universe for the fifteen or thirty or sixty seconds he spend with them. He's going to remember everything each one of them say to him so that the next time we're in Minnesota raising money, he can ask each one about Aunt Tillie or Cousin Jethro or the family dog's tumor. And he will really care about it. Even if it's seven or eight years from now.'"

He smiled. "I tucked that away to ponder it. When we went back to Minnesota seven years later to campaign for Uncle Charlie, I saw that Mom was absolutely right. Dad really did care. Aunt Tillie had died and he hugged the grieving niece. Cousin Jethro came to the event and was so impressed that a Washington insider knew who he was that he finally broke down and joined the Democratic party. Thanks, but we really don't need a puppy from the healed dog's latest purebred litter. On and on like that with people through over two hundred cities in all fifty states, I discovered that my father was a man with a heart big enough to care for the entire country. I went with him to Africa last year and discovered that his heart was big enough for the entire world."

Seth's hands tightened on the sides of the podium. Donna felt her heart tighten as his knuckles went white from the strain. He had struggled over the last part of his tribute, she knew, because he wanted it to be just right.

"Mohandas Gandhi said that 'Imitation is the sincerest flattery.' Flattery gets a bad name as something false, but I think Gandhi knew something about flattery that most of us don't. Flattery is ultimately about being recognized for the good and true things one has done in life. And as imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, I can only pray that my life will be adequate enough of an imitation of my father's life to flatter him to the degree of which he is worthy. On behalf of my sister Leah, my brothers Noah and Jed, and most especially my mother, Donna, I want to thank you all for coming and for all the support you have given to us in this difficult time. May Adonai bless you."

Donna held back her tears until she saw that Seth shook as he walked across the platform to his seat between the two presidents. She cried quiet tears through the rest of the service.


	7. Complete

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

The corridor of the hotel hummed as the air conditioner struggled to keep up with an early heat wave. Donna wondered anyone else, had they entered the hall just then, would have heard the AC at all over the pounding of her heart as she scurried toward her destiny. _Dear God, that sounds pretentious, _she chided herself, scrunching the paper heart in one sweaty palm.

She took a moment to collect herself at Josh's door before she knocked. He whipped open the door before she could rap a second time. She barely had time to register that he wore only a t-shirt and boxers before she fell into the room.

He slammed the door closed behind her, all but trapping her between the door and his jittery body. "Donna?" For the first time, she saw undisguised love and unabashed desire in the depths of his brown eyes as he took in her entire body. She melted inside and knew that she couldn't ravish him until he understood, really appreciated the depth of her feelings in return.

"Josh." She unfolded the paper and raised before his eyes. She leaned in to touch her lips to his, enough to seal the moment but not yet enough to lead to anything more. "Get me some tape and the other part."

As though in a daze, Josh moved to comply, his silence unnerving and thrilling in its intensity. She followed him into the room and sat down on the king sized bed near a nightstand, then patted the space beside her when he stepped in front of her. He sat down. Holding onto the quickening silence, she took her time taping the two pieces of the heart together, first on one side and then on the other, intent on making the join as strong as it could possibly be.

The way he watched her fingers work sent a torrid shot of arousal through her. She squirmed under his scrutiny even as her hands worked without fault. She wanted him in ways she had never thought possible before this night.

Donna held the reunited heart to his chest with both hands, feeling the strong beat of his real heart under her fingers thump in counterpoint to her own. She raised her eyes to meet his, held his gaze as she spoke. "You will never be incomplete again, Joshua. I love you."

Their mutual seduction moved in slow motion. He took her hands in one of his and moved the paper heart to the nightstand with the other before he ran his hand along her bare arm, raising goosebumps with his gossamer touch.

She scuffed the sandals off her feet so she could run her smooth, pedicured feet over his bare feet, finding the action as erotic as any kiss from the few lovers in her past. _If just playing footsy makes me this needy, what will it be like when he . . . oohhh . . ._ Her inner sigh became a moan as his lips worked the sensitive skin at her throat while he traced her left breast through her tank top with one tender finger. Her last coherent thought was that she forgot to put her bra back on before she lost herself in the sensations of touching and being touched.

He let go of her hands and she moved to take his t-shirt off, wanting to feel and taste the topography of his chest. She pushed him down on the bed and raised herself over him to see him in his imperfect beauty. In the light of the single lit lamp, what might have been ugly glowed like a river under moonlight, tracing the work of the surgeons who worked for 14 hours after Rosslyn to make this singular night possible. She kissed the trail of his scar to take away its power over him and over her.

He shuddered under her even as he caressed her sides, baring more of her skin with each stroke up and down along her flanks. If he had thrown her over and taken her right then, she would have been ready. Her center ached, demanding exploration and satisfaction as he teased each successive inch of her frame.

She worked his boxers down in similar fashion, eliciting animal growls of hunger from him.

Somehow, her tank top came off, revealing her breasts to him. He lost no time, latching onto one erect nipple with greedy lips while his hands continued to push at her shorts.

Who stripped who first neither could say later. What they did remember was the potency of the pause as they saw each other nude for the first time, each both less and more glorious to the other than all the fantasies of eight long years of denied desire.

Their first real kiss transcended human description. It became not just a dance of lips and tongues but a tango of bodies as she lowered herself onto him, letting him fill her to a degree she never dreamed possible. They moved together as they had worked together, without beginning or end to their mutual identity, until the waves of building pleasure gave way to crushing spasms of ecstasy.

Later – it might have been minutes or hours, she was never sure – after he had spooned with her and strummed her center like a guitar until she came with a chord of whimpered euphoria, he spoke for the first time since she appeared at his door. "I love you, DOnnatella Moss. Marry me."

She knew he couldn't see her smile, but she smiled anyway as she answered with one simple word. "Yes."


	8. Incomplete Again

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.

-

The simple burial service, attended by the two presidents and their first ladies along with the remaining staff from the Bartlet White House and about thirty of Josh's protégé's and staff, ended with the traditional filling of the grave. They left the immediate area, leaving the family to say their goodbyes. After five minutes or so, Noah and Seth helped Leah across the muddy turf toward the waiting limo.

Jed clapped his hand on Donna's shoulder after another two or three minutes. "Mom, are you ready?"

She didn't look at him, instead focusing on the harsh edges of the name already carved into the stone in defiance of yet another Jewish custom. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets against the chill. "Not yet, lovebug. Go talk with Uncle Sam and Aunt Ainsley for few minutes or something, if you don't mind. I . . . I need some time alone."

"Okay. But call me when you're ready to leave. I don't want you to try to get across the grass by yourself."

She listened to his squishing footsteps as he retreated. "He's a good boy, our Jed. So is Seth, and Noah is a gem. Leah, well, you know about our diamond. She's not so rough anymore."

She knew it was irrational, but she wanted Josh to answer her. Just one more time.

But no answer came. She hung her head for a moment, then set a smile on her face and spoke to the mound of dirt that marked her husband's burial place, telling him for the millionth time what she had thought when she first saw him fully revealed. "It would have been very difficult to work for you if I had really known what a god you were under those stiff shirts and messy ties. My fantasies were bad enough."

In her head, she heard his voice, raspy with desire and hoarse with frustrated withdrawal from her touch as she watched him dress that first morning. "I never thought I could want you more than I have wanted to make love to you since the moment you walked through the door in New Hampshire. I was wrong. If you were a habit before, now you're an addiction I never want to treat."

She moved around to the back of the stone, where a small brass box had been mounted. She opened the box and pulled out a plastic tube. With cold, numb hands she twisted the end open, then laid the two pieces atop the stone and shoved her hands back into the warmth of her pockets.

She stood, looking out at the other graves but not seeing anything, for a few moments before she straightened her spine and heaved a tired sigh. Donna pulled her hands from her pockets, a piece of paper in each hand. She rolled the larger part of the heart into a tube and with deliberate movements slid it into the plastic tube, then sealed it tight and put it back into the brass box.

Tears flowed again as she struggled to say what she needed to say. "I've lost my heart, Joshua. Only the smallest part remains to beat lonely night after lonely night. Until we meet again in another realm, my darling Joshua. I love you."

Donna Moss Lyman turned away from her husband's grave, holding the small piece of the heart that had been theirs since a fateful encounter on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. She knew it would only be for a while, but as he had once been incomplete without her, she was now, without him, incomplete.

_-FIN-_


End file.
